Discovery BoxPsalms 33:17 
Context33:17 A horse disappoints those who trust in it for victory; 1
despite its great strength, it cannot deliver.
Psalms 37:35
Context37:35 I have seen ruthless evil men 2
growing in influence, like a green tree grows in its native soil. 3
Psalms 60:2
Context60:2 You made the earth quake; you split it open. 4
Repair its breaches, for it is ready to fall. 5
Psalms 71:15
Context71:15 I will tell about your justice,
and all day long proclaim your salvation, 6
though I cannot fathom its full extent. 7
1 tn Heb “a lie [is] the horse for victory.”
2 tn The Hebrew uses the representative singular again here.
3 tn Heb “being exposed [?] like a native, luxuriant.” The Hebrew form מִתְעָרֶה (mit’areh) appears to be a Hitpael participle from עָרָה (’arah, “be exposed”), but this makes no sense in this context. Perhaps the form is a dialectal variant of מִתְעָלָה (“giving oneself an air of importance”; see Jer 51:3), from עָלָה (’alah, “go up”; see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 296). The noun אֶזְרָח (’ezrakh, “native, full citizen”) refers elsewhere to people, but here, where it is collocated with “luxuriant, green,” it probably refers to a tree growing in native soil.
4 tn The verb פָּצַם (patsam, “split open”) occurs only here in the OT. An Arabic cognate means “crack,” and an Aramaic cognate is used in Tg. Jer 22:14 with the meaning “break open, frame.” See BDB 822 s.v. and Jastrow 1205 s.v. פְּצַם.
sn You made the earth quake; you split it open. The psalmist uses the imagery of an earthquake to describe the nation’s defeat.
5 sn It is ready to fall. The earth is compared to a wall that has been broken by the force of the earthquake (note the preceding line) and is ready to collapse.
6 tn Heb “my mouth declares your vindication, all the day your deliverance.”
7 tn Heb “though I do not know [the] numbers,” that is, the tally of God’s just and saving acts. HALOT 768 s.v. סְפֹרוֹת understands the plural noun to mean “the art of writing.”
